marriage migrant women and overseas children of multicultural families who
require a new policy due to dissolution of multicultural families.
Issue 15. Improvement of Human Rights of Migrant Workers
15-1. Improvement of Dire Working Condition and Wage Discrimination
110. The number of women migrant workers who are exposed to complex
vulnerabilities for being workers, aliens, and women at the same time and
whose voices as minorities are hardly heard stands at 324,000, accounting for
33.7% of total foreign workers.
111. A survey on women migrant workers in the manufacturing industry shows that
their rights to work are not protected and exposed to discrimination as the
majority has not signed any form of employment contract. They also suffered
from economic hardship due to low income or overdue wages and faced
sexual harassment and ignorance of maternity protection mostly in small-scale
businesses.16
112. 33.3% workers engaged in agriculture and livestock industries is women, most
of whom do not subscribe to employer-provided health insurance as their
employers are not registered. Isolated away from cities, their workplace and
dormitories are mostly under complete control of their employers, which
deprives government agencies or migrant worker advocate groups of the
accessibility necessary for providing remedies.
113. On the other hand, migrant seafarers mostly on coastal fishing vessels are
more likely to stay undocumented: as of the end of July 2017, the ratio of
undocumented workers on costal fishing vessels smaller than 20 tons was 65%
and the ratio for those costal fishing vessels larger than 20 tons was 37%,
much higher than the ratio for the entire population of foreign workers, 11.2%,
for a same period. This is the reason they usually encounter substandard
working conditions, violation of human rights, and discrimination in
minimum wages.17
114. The minimum wages for seafarers is decided by the Announcement of the
16 According to the Survey Report on Female Migrant Workers in Manufacturing Industry by the NHRCK in
2016, a total of 385 female workers were surveyed among whom only 49.4% had signed an employment
contract, 54.3% were paid less than KRW 1.5 million, 15.1% had suffered from overdue wages, 11.7% had
endured sexual harassment/violence which mostly recurred more than twice.
17 The Studies on Reestablishment of Guidelines on Human Rights of Migrants by the NHRCK in 2017, p.100,
is referenced, which is quoted from the Ministry of Justice's discussion in the booklet for the Conference
of Promotion of Human Rights of Migrant Seafarers held on September 5, 2017.
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